AN UNUSUAL THROWING-CLUB, carved in the style of a Fiji ula, the gadrooned head and domed finial inset with twenty-five sharks' teeth, various painted and impressed inventory numbers to the shaft

Details
AN UNUSUAL THROWING-CLUB, carved in the style of a Fiji ula, the gadrooned head and domed finial inset with twenty-five sharks' teeth, various painted and impressed inventory numbers to the shaft
44.5cm. long
Provenance
Museum of Artillery, Woolwich

Lot Essay

In the Official Catalogue of the Museum of Artillery in the Rotunda, Woolwich, 1906, the entry under class XIX, numbers 57-62 reads: "Five knob-kerries of wood from South Africa, 15in. long, with knobs 4 in. in diameter. The knob of one is carved in 17 wings and the grasps of two roughened with carving. Weight about 1.8lbs." Our club which bears the painted class number 19 and the entry number 58 has seventeen bosses about the head and is almost certainly the one referred to in the description, though the attribution to South Africa must be incorrect. The Museum of Artillery at Woolwich have no record of when or how the club entered their collection.

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